So now that it's January it is about time for people on the Internet to complain about wrestling. Specifically the WWE's annual road to Wrestlemania. Every January marks an approximate three month kick off of major storylines that are featured in Wrestlemania, the WWE's largest show of the year. January is especially important because it contains the Royal Rumble match, a match where the goal is to throw opposinng wrestlers over the top rope of the ring. When a wrestler goes over the top rope, and has both feet hit the floor, he is eliminated from the match. Every 90 seconds a new challenger enters the ring, with a total of 30 competitors in the match. The draw of the Royal Rumble is that anyone can win and go onto Wrestlemania for a big match. This leads to surprise returns for old wrestlers, debuts of newly signed ones, or good old fashioned underdog stories.
Viewership across the WWE is at a low point, due in large part to stories becoming predictable. No one goes to watch movies or television shows where they know what will happen, I mean come on we avoid spoilers for this very reason. The WWE has become outright predictable due to the continued insistence from the company itself that they know what viewers like better than us, the viewer does. In turn this leads to stories and matches that make wrestlers, namely one named Roman Reigns look, really strong.
By continually shoving one or two wrestlers at us as our "favorites" the WWE is ignoring better wrestlers, and making things too predictable. The Rumble this year holds promise not just because of how big it is, but how open it is. This is the firs time in almost 4 years where there is not a clear favorite. We as viewers are firmly stuck in the dark as to what will happen. And with Roman and the old standby/walking meme John Cena being tied up in other matches, for the first time inn a long time I'm looking forward to a WWE event. This could be the time to put someone new on the map. From a Rumble win and good writing, a wrestler can be taken from middle of the card nobody to top of the card fan favorite. If the WWE wants to turn its lagging viewer numbers around,, the best thing it can do is to make this year's Rumble winner a surprise.
